


Tuesday 2.21(B)AM

by yonderdarling



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Elementary (TV), Elementary AU, F/M, Gen, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3874792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/pseuds/yonderdarling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson walks past Buckingham Palace on her way to work. She always thought it was the tourists who annoyed the guards, not the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tuesday 2.21(B)AM

**Author's Note:**

> I have literally no idea how the guards outside Buckingham Palace are chosen or organized, nor where the London Eye is relative to the Palace. Just roll with it. I don't often write humour or AUs, so please be kind! Thanks to Lisa ("What a weird prompt [...] I like it") and Grace for looking this over for me. 
> 
> Based on the prompt "person a being a guard outside buckingham palace that person b always tries to distract au" by aphtexts on Tumblr, but things seemed to get a bit switched around.

London was a vibrant, beautiful city, but goddamn was the parking and traffic situation atrocious. Even Joan Watson, New York native, found it far too frustrating to deal with London's peak hour gridlock and had began walking to work. After time in the public relations department of UN Women and working for several corporations both in the US and the UK, Joan was a highly experienced and sought-after PR specialist.

The year previously she'd been selected as the incumbent for a position created by the Buckingham Palace PR group and the United States embassy. After a series of brief but incredibly well documented by the paparazzi affairs between members of the United States and various branches of the royal family tree and the gentry, the position of the Liaison for US-UK Interpersonal Affairs had been created, Joan had been selected and offered a generous salary to help do damage control when such situations arose. After six months of success, Australian and European equivalents to her team had been created and the gentry had never looked less scandalous. Though Prince Harry finally ageing out of going clubbing was definitely a boon to their efforts.

One Tuesday morning in mid-autumn, she strode past the gates of Buckingham Palace. The early morning - her office hours began at 6am due to the US-UK time difference - was not an attractive part of the position, but Joan liked being up early, seeing the city of London as relatively peaceful, quiet, and free of the useless millions who tended to trail in after eight AM. Craving a coffee from her favourite takeaway place a few streets down from her office, as she passed the gates of the Buckingham palace, Joan tried to pull her cellphone out of her pocket to see if she had time, knocking her keys out in the process. They hit the stones with a clatter.

"You look a prime target for pickpocketing," said a voice, as she knelt to grab them. She looked up. One of the guards was watching her from a few feet away, stock still and face blank in his red jacket and hat.

"Large pockets are a boon in women's clothing, of course, but those are more wide and shallow than deep and narrow. I'd help you pick them up, but I'm not really meant to move around. Or talk to people, now I think on it. Ah, duty. She is a harsh mistress."

"Thanks for your input," said Joan. "I'll keep that in mind. Sorry, I'm running late."

And with that, she took off. Part of her marvelled at how after a year in London, the palace and the guards had basically faded into the background as opposed to being the iconic, touristy images of city she had once dreamt of seeing in high school. The other part hoped that the third son of the Duke of Gloucester had been able to keep it in his pants overnight.

\--

WEDNESDAY, 5.46 AM  
She wore an across-the-body bag the next day, not realising what had prompted her decision until she felt a faint flush of embarrassment as she approached the palace.  
"Much better choice," said the guard as she walked by.  
Joan avoided the Buckingham palace route for the rest of the week, despite the alternative path adding ten minutes to her journey. Being late the following Monday stiffened her resolve. She could ignore the guard. He was probably just bored, anyway. Not much to look at, on that side of the palace.

\---

TUESDAY, 5.47 AM  
"If my comments made you uncomfortable, Miss Watson, I sincerely apologise," said the guard. "But I'm here on weekdays from 4AM until midday. You must understand. It is dull. I don't even get tourists poking me."

\---

WEDNESDAY, 5.45 AM  
"Your apology is accepted, and I'm sorry tourists don't seem to want to poke you," she said on her way by. She was sure she heard him snort but didn't turn back to check.

\---

THURSDAY, 5.43 AM  
"I learnt your name from the paper, before you ask. You were in the Times a few months ago, that interview with the accompanying shot of you in your office."

\---

FRIDAY, 5.42 AM  
"I hear the Earl of Downton is going to be giving you issues," the guardsman commented. Joan ignored him. She didn't have issues. She dealt with them.  
"Keep an eye on the US Secretary of State's husband," he said on Friday. "Though I'm sure, you already are. He probably has his own special OPs team."

\---

Joan had a date on Saturday night, and for lack of better ideas - he was an aid in the US embassy and kind of quiet, but she was willing to give him a chance - chose Diogenes as the place to have dinner.  
On Sunday, she took a jog but avoided the Buckingham end of town entirely. The crowds were always a nightmare.

\---

MONDAY, 5.47 AM  
Monday morning bought a sage, unsolicited piece of advice from the guardsman: "You own too many grey coats."  
He was right. People - grateful spouses and diplomats, primarily - seemed to just give her gift cards to Kingsman tailors and it was the only thing she liked from their range. "Thinning out your wardrobe would streamline your-"  
She could walk quite fast when she wanted.

\---

TUESDAY, 5.52 AM  
Joan was running slightly behind on Tuesday, and they must have been doing manoeuvres a few minutes early, because the guard was walking instead of impersonating an overdressed statue with shifty eyes as she passed the palace.  
"As I was saying," he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "It would streamline your morning routine and you'd be able to sleep in an extra few minutes, or even go for a jog."  
"How do you know I jog?" Joan asked, forgetting her promise to not talk to the weirdest Buckingham palace guardsman in history.  
"Your calves. And I know you have terrible taste in restaurants."  
He was turning around at that point so she couldn't ask him to elaborate.

\----

WEDNESDAY, 5.47 AM  
"Diogenes. Terrible. I know of the owner. He's a scoundrel."

\---

THURSDAY, 1.42 PM  
"Maybe you should make a complaint to the palace?" asked Mary, her Australian counterpart, spearing a piece of ravioli with her fork. "If it's making you uncomfortable?"  
Joan shrugged. "I actually don't mind. It's kind of weird though, usually it's the tourists who annoy the guards."  
"Wait, you didn't make me come back to Diogenes just to spite this random guard dude, did you?" Mary asked. "I mean, I like this place but I can't afford to make it a weekly thing."

\---

FRIDAY, 5.44 AM  
It was threatening rain when she left her apartment, and she mistakenly forwent an umbrella. It was drizzling as she passed the palace, and she was wondering if she should hail a taxi, when the guard held out his hand, the fur on his hat covered in a fine sheen of rain.  
"I have something for you," he said, face still in the blank expression expected of a guardsman. "Wait there."  
He turned on his heel and walked smartly to his small guard's hut. He re-emerged with a black compact umbrella.  
"A tourist hung this on me around four o'clock this morning. Or he may have been from Cornwall, they're just as foreign. Either way, drunk out of his mind." The guard brandished it at her with a flourish. " With my compliments."  
"Uh, thank you?" Joan took it, glanced over at the other guards dotted around the fence. One of them turned his head a tiny bit to watch her. "Are you allowed to give out umbrellas?"  
"When you work in the service of her Majesty the Queen, we guards are allowed to assist you in any way possible. With her Majesty's compliments. Even if you are from the colonies."

\---

Joan walked to and from work with the umbrella and used it when she went barhopping with several work friends on Saturday night. The following Monday the guard didn't speak to her, but instead gifted her with a vacant expression as she carefully, in the style of so many tourists before her, hung it off his pinky finger. As she walked away she was sure she saw his shoulders moving up and down with suppressed laughter.

\---

TUESDAY, 5.45 AM, WEDNESDAY 5.43 AM, THURSDAY 5.41 AM  
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday saw him alternatively advising her on grey coats (again), telling her he owned a pet tortoise, and that the tortoise was called Clyde.  
"Why Clyde?"  
"Because as a child I already had a pet badger called Ferdinand."  
"You can't have a pet badger," Joan said on Friday at 5.40 AM. "They can't be domesticated."

\--

The following weeks involved conversations regarding ways to entertain oneself whilst standing up and staring into the mist at 5AM, a condensed history of the cobblestone's role in revolutions, a suggestion from the guard that Joan invest in rollerblades to speed her journey to work ("No. Just, no." "Childhood mishap?" "Fashion mistake.") and the guard's recommendations on things to do and see in London on Joan's days off, including "some caves I may or may not have discovered under Camden market, absolutely fascinating, and of course, the grave of Jimmy Hoffa."  
"He was buried in New York. Come on. He was a mafia man."  
"Sure he was buried in New York. Sure.")

\---

THURSDAY, 5.40 AM  
"Do you require an umbrella today? The weather report said this afternoon may be quite wet."  
"Why, thank you."

\---

FRIDAY, 5.41 AM  
"As they say, happy friday, Miss Watson."  
"Send my regards to Clyde."

\--

TUESDAY, 5.40 AM  
"You know, of all your grey coats, that one is certainly my favourite."

\--

WEDNESDAY, 5.41 AM  
"You know, of all your red coats and giant fur hats, that's definitely my favourite set."

\--

MONDAY, 5.40 AM  
"You know all this stuff about me, that I work in PR, and about my family, and my career and you've even sent me to touristy spots around the city. Can't you share something about yourself?"  
"I'm ambidextrous."  
"Actually, I already figured that. You gave me that umbrella with your right hand the first time, then your left the second time I borrowed it."  
The guard appeared to think for a moment, then tugged up his sleeve slightly, showed her his wrist. "I have a scar here. I fell off a fence as a child and suffered a compound fracture. I thought I could treat it myself, but obviously I was wrong. I ended up in hospital with sepsis. My father was very disappointed."

\---

Before Joan knew it, it was winter and she had been speaking to the guard for nearly three months and didn't even know his name. It seemed too odd to ask at that point, and he almost didn't seem to mind. Perhaps he hadn't realised.

\---

MONDAY, 5.37 AM  
"Do you ever grow tired with your chosen career, Watson?"  
"...It's always a challenge. I like that."  
The guard paused, looked into the distance through the lightly falling snow.  
"I think it would be frustrating, covering up for these people's mistakes, when all that's at stake is their reputation."  
"And inter-state relations."  
The guard ignored that interjection. "Acting as a spin doctor. You mentioned you wanted to be a medical doctor when you were a child, a few weeks ago."  
"I can't stand blood," admitted Joan. "I guess it is frustrating, but it's what I'm good at. Do you like being a guard?"  
"My mother liked it," said the guard, shifting his gaze to her face. "To be honest, I wanted to be a detective when I was young. I still think I could do it. I've kept my hand in, deduction-wise."  
"Really? I never would have guessed."

\---

TUESDAY, 2.21 AM  
Her phone was ringing. It was black, and cold. And this couldn't be good. Joan's hand emerged from under the covers, fumbled across the debris of her nightstand, and found the vibrating, jangling thing that had woken her up from a fantastic dream involving actual New York bagels.

"The HOLMES BROTHERS!" someone shrieked down the line.

Joan switched on her lamp, regretted it, and squinted in the sudden bright light. "Who?" They couldn't have been that esteemed. She was sure half the noble families of the UK had passed over her desk since she'd started working in this position.

"BOTH OF THEM."

"Who is this?"

"Oh, sorry Joan. It's Shirley, one of the night staff in the PR department at the place. We met that time they caught the Australian ambassador's niece and the footman with those vegetables-"

"Shirley, yes, I remember you, what's up?"

"One of the Holmes brothers was engaged to the former Marchioness of Fantailer and they just arrested her and the OTHER brother for public indecency on the London Eye."

"…Isn't the London Eye closed at 2AM on a Tuesday?"

"Oh, and for breaking and entering. Not so concerned about that right now, more about the…public…cunnilingus."

Now that woke Joan up. She could feel herself slipping into work mode. "Alright. I'll get to the office. Tell me, who are the Holmes brothers and why are they important?"

"Father is Mr. Michael Holmes, tipped to be eventually accepted into the peerage officially - like, titled. Works in stocks, and real estate, but also comes from old money. Really old money." As Shirley spoke, Joan got up and began to rummage, one-handed through her wardrobe. She really did own too many grey coats. "One son, the one who was originally engaged, God knows how that's going to work out, to the Marchioness, is Mycroft Holmes. He runs Diogenes. Mary from the Australian division mentioned you'd been there a few times?"

"He's a chef and he's the son of this super rich guy?"

"He's a restauranteur. Owns all three of the Diogenes-eses around the city." Shirley paused. "Diogeni? And he's opening one in New York, apparently. GotFrench backers, it's all happening for Mycroft Holmes."

Joan finally found a grey coat she liked, yanked out a dress, some stockings and a pair of boots. "And the other brother?"

"Ugh, this is where it gets really bad. He had some brushes with drugs when he was younger, the media will pick that up, but his mum seemed to help get him cleaned up before anything really bad could happen to him. Pushed him to join the guards, stiff upper lip, work for the mother country, all that crap the peerage buy into. Worst of all, he succeeded at it. He's a guard at Buckingham Palace." There was a clatter. "Joan? Joan?"

"Sorry, sorry - I dropped the phone. Uh. I'll be right in."

"Don't you want me to tell you about the Marchioness?"

"Oh, I heard about her," Joan fumbled with the zip on her dress. "That thing with the horse she got caught trying to steal? Yeah. Give me like half an hour, and I'll be in the office and we can deal with this properly."

"Actually, what would really help me if you went down to Scotland Yard and just tried to coach this Sherlock on what to say to the media. Apparently he hasbeen picked up for insubordination on duty, sassing his officers and things." Shirley sighed into the phone. "Make sure he doesn't be so facetious to the press in his statements, you know. I mean, it's December! It's getting cold, and I reckon it must have been freezing on the London Eye. Maybe we could spin it, like," Shirley put on a deep voice. "Makes you proud to be British." she sighed. "Oh, that won't work! This is why I'm on the night staff, Joan!"

"I'm heading out now," said Joan firmly. "Tell Scotland Yard to be expecting me."

"That was meant to be Winston Churchill, by the way."

"I'm sure it was."

\---

TUESDAY, 3.02 AM  
Joan was led into a small room with a chair and telephone facing a sheet of shatterproof glass. Behind the scratched glass sat the guard - of course, she'd known she couldn't be wrong - with several hickeys blooming on his neck (the Marchioness, probably) and the beginnings of an impressive black eye (his brother, apparently). He toyed with the receiver of the phone, waiting for her to pick it up. Distantly, she noted he had a receding hairline that his guard's hat had hidden until this moment.

"Mr. Holmes," she began.

"Awkward as this may be," he interrupted her. "At least now you've found out my name without having to ask me at an embarrassingly late stage in our relationship."

Joan stared at him through the glass.

"Sherlock," he said. "Please call me Sherlock. Mr. Holmes, that's my father. Or Mycroft."

"Guarding cannot be that boring."

"I've told you," he said. "Dull as dishwater. Duller. All sorts of interesting things in dishwater. Dirty dishes, for example. Where would we be without Fleming and his penchant for leaving unwashed scientific equipment lying about?" He was much more animated when not in his guard persona, his hands drawing circles in the air, his head tilting this way and that.

"I'm sorry, are you saying getting caught having sex with your brother's fiancee on the London Eye is the equivalent of the discovery of penicillin? Did you even think about your career?"

The guard shrugged. "The Marchioness was after mine or my brother's trust funds, nothing more. I've doubted her intentions for many months now. This was merely proof. And as for my career, I never wanted to be in the military. My mother wished it, after my teenage…misadventures with narcotics, and it got me clean. And my mother passed on. And so I have remained, a guard. But I was not built for a life of tradition, Miss Watson."

"What were you built for, Mr Holmes?"

Holmes tilted his head from side to side. "Well as you know, as a child I always wished to be a detective. I have never quite given up on that idea. But, Miss Watson, can we start again and sort out this nightmare, from which I shall certainly lose my job but my brother's restaurant attendance numbers shall soar?"

"Start again how?"

Holmes nodded at her. "Hello," he said. "I'm Sherlock Holmes."

"Joan Watson. It's a pleasure to meet you. Shame about the circumstances."

"And yes, I did have a badger called Ferdinand, though I didn't keep him in our town house, just at our estate in the country dales. And I was a dabbler in heroin, and my brother remains the bigger scoundrel than I even as I have cuckolded him."

Joan nodded, and couldn't think of anything to say but, "That was the most British sentence I've ever heard."

"That's me," said Sherlock. "Now, however can we rescue my brother's reputation?"

"I actually have a more pressing question," said Joan, into the receiver. "…How did you break into the London Eye?"

"I don't have to tell you. I could show you."

\--

The fallout was epic, and resulted in the closure of the London Eye for three days for security upgrades, a reshuffling of the entire palace guard after Holmes was dishonourably discharged (with a wink from a redheaded man Joan was sure was Prince Harry), reservations for Diogenes booking out for the next seven months ("The English love the peerage, Watson. They love the scandals of the peerage even more.") and Holmes's father threatening to freeze his accounts until Sherlock promised to move away from London, at least until the heat died down and the locks on the pods of the London Eye were all replaced for the low, low price of 1.3 million pounds.

Thankfully, the Doctor Who Christmas special had the 12th Doctor regenerate into a biracial, bisexual woman who proceeded to have an onscreen wedding to the Mistress, and so the conservatives over Christmas and through most of January directed their disgust at an episode of a children's TV show. Subsequently, the London Eye scandal had a much shorter lifespan than originally predicted.

\--

TUESDAY, 2.21 PM  
"Joan," came Mary's familiar, lightly-accented voice. "There's someone waiting at reception for you. Said his name was Clyde Ferdinand, but I'm pretty sure that's a lie."

"It is," said Joan. "Send him on through." She carefully closed the copy of the Sun that was open on her desk and tucked it into her drawer, minimised the compromising photos of Zara's horse that had been sent to the Times on her desktop, and looked up as Sherlock Holmes walked through the door of her office, shutting it carefully behind him. He was wearing grey jeans and a bulky black coat, with a beanie tucked in his pocket.

"Mr Holmes," she said.

"Miss Watson," he nodded. "I just came to say goodbye. And thank you."

"Where are you heading to? The country?"

Holmes shrugged. "I thought about Wales, but that seemed too depressing. And all those people are still picketing the places in Cardiff where they film Doctor Who. My father owns several properties in New York and so I've taken him up on his offer to live over there. I'll receive a stipend until I find work. Mycroft is annoyed I'm headed for the city he's opening a version of Diogenes in, but I've assured him that I shan't be going within a hundred yards of his overpriced - anyway. I shall fall on my feet. I'm hoping to hone my detective skills while I'm over there." He ran a hand through his hair.

"I wanted to thank you, Watson. For all those early morning discussions. I was quite lonely, as a guard. I like to think I am a solitary person, and I don't have many friends, but you proved that some interaction can be quite…welcome. So thank you. Oh, and thank you for dealing with the media. I'm sure the press would have had much more to chew on, if not for you and your team."

"It's what I do," said Joan quietly.

"I - uh, yes." said Sherlock. "Here is my new address." He rummaged in his pocket and placed a crumpled post-it on her desk. "If you're ever back in New York, and don't wish to stay with your family - understandable, considering what you told me of your mother - I assure you the Brownstone is remarkably spacious."

Joan ducked her head to hide her smile, reached across the desk and took the post-it, smoothing it out carefully between her fingers. "I'll be sure to keep you in mind." She reached over and tucked it into her coat pocket.

"Well," said Sherlock. "If you ever tire of those gentry who are unable to keep it in their pants, my door is always open."

"I might knock first," said Joan, and Sherlock chuckled.

"I must be off," he said. "I have a plane to catch. It was good to have met you, Joan Watson."

"You too, Sherlock Holmes. I'll be seeing you. Good luck with the detecting."

"Yes, it does sound odd," said Sherlock, putting on his hat again. "Detective Sherlock Holmes is a sentence I'll have to get used to, I suppose."

\---

WEDNESDAY, 5.46 AM  
The rain had held off, and so Joan walked through the late-January slush of the pavements. She kept her head down as she passed the palace, carefully holding onto her keys in her pocket like a talisman. Still, as she passed Sherlock's replacement, she couldn't help but glance over. Clean-shaven, steady-eyed and well-built under his bright and well-buttoned jacket. It looked like the palace was really making an effort to redeem itself after the incident. Joan sighed, watched her breath turn into a cloud in the air. Duty. She was a harsh mistress.

Idly fiddling with the post-it note in her pocket, Joan went on her way. Ahead of her, the newly secure and sanitised London Eye made its first arc of the day across the grey sky.

 


End file.
